About Me

I'm a gay, progressive, political blogger, born & bred in New York. I started blogging because I was really pissed off at what 8 years of Bush/Cheney did to my country. This is not the America I was brought up to believe in. It's going to take a generation to repair their damage. My intent with this blog is to aggregate news from a progressive viewpoint; not to defend my beliefs or debate conservathugs on the validity of their warped worldview. I don't mind posting contrary viewpoints, as long as they don't include conspiracy theories, flat out lies, GOP talking points or racist, xenophobic & homophobic attacks. Unfortunately, I haven't had many right-leaning visitors who have left comments that fit the bill. Oh, and I like to curse. (Email link available in my profile)

After writing Men's Wearhouse, DKos' ThatTallGuy got word they were pulling their ads from Glenn Beck as well:

Dear [TTG],

Thank you for contacting Men’s Wearhouse and bringing to our attention your concerns with the Glenn Beck program on Fox News. While we support free speech and do not make advertising decisions based on our own personal ideologies, after reviewing his recent incendiary comments we have decided to remove our advertising from his program. We hope that this decision will allow you to continue to patronize Men’s Wearhouse. I would encourage you to please share our decision with anyone else who may have expressed a similar concern.

I watched the Media Matters video about companies that are funding the Glenn Beck show and decided to do my part and write State Farm, Red Lobster, and Wal-mart an email to express my concern with their advertising decision. I had already written to Progressive Insurance, Lawyers.com, and Proctor and Gamble to commend their decision to pull their ads from his show, and my emails were greeted with personal responses.

[...] Within several hours, I got a response from State Farm:

"Dear Steve,

Thank you for your recent e-mail concerning State Farm’s advertising on the Fox network.

We have a policy of not advertising on political or opinion programming. We have corrected this issue and have taken steps to make sure it does not happen again.

Understanding our millions of customers and thousands of associates hold a full spectrum of views on political issues, State Farm has a long-standing practice of not advertising in political discussion programming regardless of a program’s political point of view.

Because of the recent situation, State Farm is now evaluating its commercial placement practices to ensure its political issues advertising guidelines are maintained.

Great news -- yet another major company has acted in response to our campaign calling on Glenn Beck's advertisers to stop supporting his show. GEICO told us that they will no longer run ads during Beck's show.

This comes on the heels of news last week that four other advertisers -- Lawyers.com, Progressive Insurance, Procter & Gamble, and SC Johnson -- also distanced themselves from Beck. None of this would have been possible without the thousands of people -- more than 75,000, now -- who have taken action and signed our petition to Glenn Beck's advertisers.

"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."

"We applaud GEICO and all of the other companies who have stepped forward to pull their ads from Glenn Beck," said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. "Beck's rhetoric is dangerous to the fabric of our democracy, and we are heartened that so many big companies feel the same way. We won't stop here -- we're going to continue our fight to see that as many of Beck’s advertisers pull their support as possible."

If you haven't already signed our petition to Beck's advertisers, please do, and please ask your friends and family to do the same (there's a sample email you can send them here). We're going to keep reaching out to Beck's remaining advertisers, and we'll keep you posted on ways you can help keep the pressure on.

Pretty soon, the only ads the Glenn Beck Show will be airing will be Cash4Gold ads.

I just received the following from Pat Lombardo, Sargento Consumer Affairs Department:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during “The Glenn Beck Show.” We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

So if you were wondering if we were having an effect on Glenn Beck's bottom line, I'd say we were. And hopefully it won't be too long before Murdoch takes notice and ditches the loon.

According to TVNewser, Beck advertisers Procter and Gamble, Lawyers.com and Progressive Insurance have all pulled their ads from Beck's 5PM ET show. This comes in the wake of groups like ColorOfChange.org's efforts to get companies to distance themselves from Beck.

Be sure to check out this diary by DKos' wikoogle for a full listing of all Beck's advertisers. They've made it real easy for you to send emails to any of them (or all of them) if you like. All you've got to do is copy & paste the list and send a letter of your own:

Ever since the boycott of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity's shows, I've been DVRing Beck's show regularly, fast forwarding through the show but jotting down a list of the advertisers on the shows, and calling, writing, and emailing the companies expressing my displeasure at the views they are endorsing through their advertising dollars.

On average, nationwide corporations consider each angry letter they receive, the equivalent of at least a thousand customers who feel the same way, but didn't bother to write. That someone gets upset over something enough to look up their corporate address, and hand write them a personal letter is actually very rare, so when it happens, corporations do take such letters seriously.

[snip]

Remember, sponsors are spending precious ad revenue in this economy because they want to GAIN customers. If they realize that a certain ad buy is actually angering and costing them customers, and being seen as an endorsement of hateful racist language and rhetoric, they're going to stop. So please do write letters, include receipts of competitors products that you purchased instead of their products as a result of this boycott. Make phone calls. You are having an impact.

[snip]

This boycott is working DailyKos.

Fox News is getting so desperate for ads to air during Beck's show that they are now airing in primetime slots ads originally purchased for the much cheaper 1AM-5AM time slots. We just need to keep up the pressure on these companies that continue to endorse Fox News' hate speech, and extend the boycott to Hannity's show.

I know that we can continue pressure on this new crop of Beck's advertisers and achieve similar results with Sean Hannity by compiling a list of his advertisers and emailing them.read more....

After writing Men's Wearhouse, DKos' ThatTallGuy got word they were pulling their ads from Glenn Beck as well:

Dear [TTG],

Thank you for contacting Men’s Wearhouse and bringing to our attention your concerns with the Glenn Beck program on Fox News. While we support free speech and do not make advertising decisions based on our own personal ideologies, after reviewing his recent incendiary comments we have decided to remove our advertising from his program. We hope that this decision will allow you to continue to patronize Men’s Wearhouse. I would encourage you to please share our decision with anyone else who may have expressed a similar concern.

I watched the Media Matters video about companies that are funding the Glenn Beck show and decided to do my part and write State Farm, Red Lobster, and Wal-mart an email to express my concern with their advertising decision. I had already written to Progressive Insurance, Lawyers.com, and Proctor and Gamble to commend their decision to pull their ads from his show, and my emails were greeted with personal responses.

[...] Within several hours, I got a response from State Farm:

"Dear Steve,

Thank you for your recent e-mail concerning State Farm’s advertising on the Fox network.

We have a policy of not advertising on political or opinion programming. We have corrected this issue and have taken steps to make sure it does not happen again.

Understanding our millions of customers and thousands of associates hold a full spectrum of views on political issues, State Farm has a long-standing practice of not advertising in political discussion programming regardless of a program’s political point of view.

Because of the recent situation, State Farm is now evaluating its commercial placement practices to ensure its political issues advertising guidelines are maintained.

Great news -- yet another major company has acted in response to our campaign calling on Glenn Beck's advertisers to stop supporting his show. GEICO told us that they will no longer run ads during Beck's show.

This comes on the heels of news last week that four other advertisers -- Lawyers.com, Progressive Insurance, Procter & Gamble, and SC Johnson -- also distanced themselves from Beck. None of this would have been possible without the thousands of people -- more than 75,000, now -- who have taken action and signed our petition to Glenn Beck's advertisers.

"On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program," said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck's program."

"We applaud GEICO and all of the other companies who have stepped forward to pull their ads from Glenn Beck," said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. "Beck's rhetoric is dangerous to the fabric of our democracy, and we are heartened that so many big companies feel the same way. We won't stop here -- we're going to continue our fight to see that as many of Beck’s advertisers pull their support as possible."

If you haven't already signed our petition to Beck's advertisers, please do, and please ask your friends and family to do the same (there's a sample email you can send them here). We're going to keep reaching out to Beck's remaining advertisers, and we'll keep you posted on ways you can help keep the pressure on.

Pretty soon, the only ads the Glenn Beck Show will be airing will be Cash4Gold ads.

I just received the following from Pat Lombardo, Sargento Consumer Affairs Department:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during “The Glenn Beck Show.” We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

So if you were wondering if we were having an effect on Glenn Beck's bottom line, I'd say we were. And hopefully it won't be too long before Murdoch takes notice and ditches the loon.

According to TVNewser, Beck advertisers Procter and Gamble, Lawyers.com and Progressive Insurance have all pulled their ads from Beck's 5PM ET show. This comes in the wake of groups like ColorOfChange.org's efforts to get companies to distance themselves from Beck.

Be sure to check out this diary by DKos' wikoogle for a full listing of all Beck's advertisers. They've made it real easy for you to send emails to any of them (or all of them) if you like. All you've got to do is copy & paste the list and send a letter of your own:

Ever since the boycott of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity's shows, I've been DVRing Beck's show regularly, fast forwarding through the show but jotting down a list of the advertisers on the shows, and calling, writing, and emailing the companies expressing my displeasure at the views they are endorsing through their advertising dollars.

On average, nationwide corporations consider each angry letter they receive, the equivalent of at least a thousand customers who feel the same way, but didn't bother to write. That someone gets upset over something enough to look up their corporate address, and hand write them a personal letter is actually very rare, so when it happens, corporations do take such letters seriously.

[snip]

Remember, sponsors are spending precious ad revenue in this economy because they want to GAIN customers. If they realize that a certain ad buy is actually angering and costing them customers, and being seen as an endorsement of hateful racist language and rhetoric, they're going to stop. So please do write letters, include receipts of competitors products that you purchased instead of their products as a result of this boycott. Make phone calls. You are having an impact.

[snip]

This boycott is working DailyKos.

Fox News is getting so desperate for ads to air during Beck's show that they are now airing in primetime slots ads originally purchased for the much cheaper 1AM-5AM time slots. We just need to keep up the pressure on these companies that continue to endorse Fox News' hate speech, and extend the boycott to Hannity's show.

I know that we can continue pressure on this new crop of Beck's advertisers and achieve similar results with Sean Hannity by compiling a list of his advertisers and emailing them.read more....